Today I yawned my way through
Hollywoodland starring Ben Affleck and Diane Lane.
I can't put my finger on exactly what I disliked about the movie, except to say that there just wasn't much to it.
The acting is strong—Diane Lane as a controlling older mistress (Toni Mannix) and Ben Affleck as the doomed TV star (George Reeves). While they were the main characters in the story, the supporting players were more exciting. Robin Tunney plays a colorful and cunning gold digger (Leonore Lemmon), leaving the viewers to doubt if the late actor's fiancé ever loved him at all. And Adrian Brody's portrayal of investigator Louis Simo is easily the best performance in the film.
That said, for such an interesting real-life story, the Hollywood version falls short.
Sure, there are brawls in the street and innocent people turning up dead and scorned husbands, wives and lovers...but none of it is enough to get the pulse racing.
And at the end of the day, if Reeves really did kill himself, you have to wonder why. He had a successful (if not ideal) TV career and was on a path to directing and producing features. There was no shortage of women in his life and he still had a substantial fan base.
A senseless tragedy, no matter how it happened.
